Optical discs are a popular storage media for data that typically include a circular, usually flat and often polycarbonate medium whereon data is stored. As the field of optical discs and optical storage media has advanced, various optical media formats have been developed, increasing the storage capacity with each subsequent generation. As an example, the optical disc format compact disc recordable (CD-R), when utilized in a computing environment, allows for the storage of 650 megabytes (MB) and can also offer storage capacities in excess of 800 MB when manufactured outside of the tolerances set forth by CD-R industry standards. A subsequent generation of optical media, digital versatile disc (DVD), formerly digital video disc, closely resembles the compact disc in outward appearance, but offers much higher storage capacities. One DVD standard often utilized in a computing environment is the digital versatile disc recordable DVD-R standard, which can offer a storage capacity of approximately 4.7 gigabytes (GB) when used in a computing environment. DVD media can also offer a storage capacity of over 8 GB in dual layer form, as is the case with the DVD-R DL standard, which is also often used in a computing environment for data storage.
Examples of subsequent generations of optical disc media such as Blue-ray Disc (BD) and High Definition DVD (HD DVD) can offer even higher data storage capacities. HD DVD re-writable, or HD DVD-RAM, an HD DVD format which can be used in a computing environment, can offer data storage capacities of in excess of 15 GB in single layer form and 30 GB in dual layer form. Current generations of Blue-ray Disc media formats used in computing environments, BD write-once (BD-R) and BD re-writable (BD-RE), can offer storage capacities in excess of 25 GB per layer. Generally speaking, data is stored on a data track of an optical disc, which can take the form of at least one spiral groove starting from the center of an optical disc that is read by a laser. Different optical media formats can have differing groove sizes and multiple layers of grooves. Some optical media formats also specify areas of the disc that are “reserved,” or, in other words not user addressable. These differing characteristics can create the requirement that various optical disc media formats be read by lasers of varying wavelengths.
One way of storing or “burning” data to each of the abovementioned generations of optical disc media requires interaction between a host computer and an optical disc drive that has the capability to write data to optical disc media. Optical disc drives that have the capability to write data to optical disc media can be categorized by the way in which they spin optical disc media when writing data to an optical disc. Often an optical disc drive has the ability to operate in more than one of these modes in order to write data to an optical disc. An optical disc drive operating in constant linear velocity (CLV) mode spins an optical disc at a higher rotational speed when the optical head is towards the inner portion of the disc and at a slower rate when the optical head is towards the outer portion of the disc. An optical disc drive operating in CLV mode will maintain a constant linear velocity of the data track(s) on an optical disc relative to the optical head of the optical disc drive when writing data to the disc. Writing at higher speeds in CLV mode can require the optical disc drive to spin an optical disc at extremely high speeds when the optical head is towards the inner portion of the disc, which can place physical demands on the optical disc outside of normal tolerances. The writing speed of an optical disc drive operating in CLV is directly related to the amount of data to be written to the optical disc.
An optical disc drive can also operate in constant angular velocity (CAV) mode when writing data to an optical disc. In CAV mode an optical disc drive spins the optical disc at a constant RPM, which has the effect of causing data tracks toward the outer edge or outer region of the optical disc to have a higher linear velocity relative to an optical head of an optical disc drive as compared to the track when viewed towards the inner edge or inner region of the disc. As a result, data transfer rates and write speeds can continuously increase as the optical head of the optical disc drive moves toward the outer edge of the optical disc. As is known in the art, there are other modes in which an optical disc drive can operate when writing data to an optical disc that can mix the properties and performance characteristics of CLV drives and CAV drives. These can include, but are not limited to: zone constant linear velocity (ZCLV) and partial constant angular velocity (PCAV).
As is also known in the art, the storing or writing of data to an optical disc is generally a slow process relative to the storing of data to a platter based hard disk drive that is often a component of a computer system. The writing of data to an optical disc can often act as a bottleneck in terms of performance of a computer system. This can be the case particularly with optical disc drives operating in a mode other than CLV mode because, as noted above, when the linear velocity of an optical disc increases relative to the optical head of an optical disc drive, data transfer rates and writing speed can increase as the optical head moves toward the outer edge of the optical disc. However, as is known in the art, the starting point of data is generally as close to the inner edge or region of the optical disc as possible, which in the case of non-CLV optical disc drives can result in slow writing speeds. If the size of the data to be written to the optical disc is less than the data storage capacity of the optical disc, then performance and speed of the writing process is less than optimal. Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.